We booked tickets a while back for another night out on the town for my dress.

How to dress 1920s

I pulled out all the stops when we were getting ready to go to a Speakeasy party at the Palais Royale.

I wanted to look authentic 1920’s style. I even made my own headband from lace, beads, velvet and peacock feathers. Hooray for having tons of crafting crap stuff in my basement. I knew it would come in handy one day.

The hair had to be put in pin curls some 6 hours prior to leaving.

This was serious stuff.

Robert looks more 2015…but I do love a man in a black suit. Well, in particular this man.

The venue was stunning. A jazz club for 92 year the Palais Royale has been home to great musicians such as Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Beautifully decorated with some original stained windows and lights, they created an even more authentic 1920’s club atmosphere with the use of a smoke machine on the dance floor.

We were greeted with pink champagne to start…

There was an incredible five course dinner including 5 versions of h’ordeuvres from the 1920’s and then again 5 updated versions from 2015 called molecular gastronomy. They arrived in dark wooden boxes and when opened a bunch of smoke billowed out. Little syringes filled with sauces were included for each morsel. It was quite the spectacle.

After several hours of eating the band started up.

The dance floor filled…

It was a great evening.

BUT…

Every time we go out to these events we often see the same groups of people. The Lindy Hop people come in a large group together. The Toronto Vintage Society come in a large group together. Most of them are great dancers and they bring wonderful energy to the event…BUT…they rig the best dressed contest every. single. time. They are the judges and they just go around picking out their friends. Then when it comes time to choose the winner they applaud the loudest for their buddies. The first time we really got dressed up for an event we thought we had the best dressed sewn up. We looked like this…

You can’t see Robert’s shoes here…but they were amazing. Everything was authentic vintage 1940’s BTW…except the shoes. We had people coming up to us all night telling us we would win the best costume.

Nope…weren’t even selected to be contenders. One guy came over to Robert, shook his hand and said he should have won. I agreed.

Next year we went…same thing. We weren’t even selected to be considered.

This time it was a different event, I thought maybe new judges etc. But NOPE. Same biased judges came and chose all their friends again.

One consolation was that I had about six people come up to me and tell me that my outfit was wonderful, so at least I felt like even if the judges weren’t looking someone else did. When I put a real effort into something I like to know that it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Thanks to my dress again for pushing me to get out on the town 1920’s style.

Have you ever been cheated out of something you felt you deserved?
Linking up with the lovely Alice over at Happiness at Mid-Life Throw Back Thursday